


I'm Giving You All My Love

by ThatAloneOne



Series: I Won't Give Up On Us [5]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blanket Permission, Carmilla as Padmé, F/F, Force-Sensitive Carmilla, JEDI AU, Laura as Anakin, MARRIED HOLLSTEIN, Star Wars AU, The Dean as Palpatine, feat. LaF and Perry as R2D2 and C3PO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:26:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: After Mustafar, Laura figures out how to put herself back together.A few melted days into her exile, Laura had stalked to the top of the volcano and peered down. She stood at the edge long enough that she left a pair of melted bootprints behind when she left. They would still be there even now, a relic of her journey.Laura didn’t want to know what else she’d left behind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to have read the whole series, but you should probably at least read Even The Stars, They Burn. 
> 
> Thank you LMoriarty for you know, saving me from approximately eighty billion typos. You're the best. I'm sorry I write so much angst? At least this one ends happily. Healing angst!

There was still ash on Laura’s hands, layered like her grief.

The first layer was from her first day, when she’d stepped from her ship and fallen to her knees on the unforgiving rock. And she had screamed, the sound reverberating enough through the Force to rattle the ship behind her.

The second, third, fourth, were from her days in wait. Her Master had ordered, and so it was done. Laura paced the surface of Mustafar, watching the flames roar like her heart, stepping to the edge of the lava and glaring out across the heat-rippled expanse. 

On Mustafar, Laura had burned. She had let loose every single emotion that had smoldered in her. Anger, grief, rage, bitterness, despair, unadulterated _want_. She let every tether go, cutting herself free from the teachings of the Jedi. Laura burned with Mustafar’s core, molten and half-formed. 

The Force had sung on Mustafar, but not the sweet, few-note medley Laura had always heard before. Mustafar was deep, aching harmonies that rattled up through the layers of volcanic rock and soared from the bubbling lava. Mustafar ached in the Force loud enough to hear, its booming voice enough to drown out Laura’s niggling doubts.

She was here for a reason. Her Master had commanded it. And so she would wait.

A few melted days into her exile, Laura had stalked to the top of the volcano and peered down. She stood at the edge long enough that she left a pair of melted bootprints behind when she left. They would still be there even now, a relic of her journey.

Laura didn’t want to know what else she’d left behind.

The last film of ash, the one caked beneath her ragged nails, was from the final day. Laura would have said it was the day she came to her senses, but that wasn’t quite true. She had experienced everything that she had done under her Master’s rule. Every sweeping cut of her lightsaber, every detail of the way she’d torn people apart with the Force that still seethed under her skin. Laura had never been unconscious, just… twisted. Viewing the world through a stained-glass window of rage and heartbreak. 

Laura’s hands left smudges of ash on Carmilla’s fine clothes, on the old Jedi robes that Laura now wore. She still burned.

 

* * *

 

Carmilla wasn’t always there when Laura woke. She wasn’t, the morning Laura fled her dreams crying instead of screaming.

Laura rolled to press her face into the pillow, fighting down the grief that threatened to overwhelm her. Her face felt hot, and her eyes stung like she was back on Mustafar. Except… Laura felt so, so cold.

She had dreamed. The same few moments, over and over, like a broken holocomm. Flashes of a disjointed fight, of screaming and clashes of red and blue and smoke. And then it would solidify, into the moment Laura never wanted to see again. 

Carmilla was below her, embers in her hair, Laura’s old lightsaber gone. Laura stepped over her, the heat of her lightsaber burning into her hand, the hollows of Carmilla’s face darkly illuminated in the red cast from her lightsaber. Laura said, “It’s over.”

And Carmilla closed her eyes.

Then it looped. Laura never made her decision on how to lower her lightsaber — to her wife’s throat, or to drop it to the rock. The dream didn’t give enough time for Carmilla’s mind to brush hers, full of love and selfishness and wanting.

Laura wasn’t confused when she was awake, her face buried in her yellow pillow, still on Carmilla’s ship after so many years. She knew where she was. She knew what had happened. Carmilla was alive. _Laura_  was alive. She hadn’t made that mistake.

Carmilla had stopped her from making that mistake. And now she was puttering elsewhere on the ship, coaxing it out of hyperspace and calculating a new jump. They were taking a roundabout way back to Coruscant, so Lilita couldn’t track them. It wouldn’t be good for the Supreme Chancellor to know that her weapon had misfired, that her daughter was still alive.

When the tears stopped, Laura took careful breaths until the softness of sleep started to settle back across her mind. She nestled back into the nest of covers, pulling the yellow pillow back under her head. Laura let herself drift away, pushing the nightmare away with the memory of Carmilla on the yellow pillow. 

She didn’t notice until later that the tang of bitterness was gone from her anger. It felt… the Jedi would never have called it pure, but that was what it felt like. It was anger for being wronged and devastated, nothing more.

 

* * *

 

 It was four days into the journey before Carmilla caught her at it.

“Laura?”

Laura closed her eyes briefly, then powered down her lightsaber. The ship hummed in hyperspace beneath her, the lights flickering minutely. She could feel everything through the Force, the clouding of the dark side slowly slipping away. She could feel the warmness of Carmilla’s presence, strengthened in the years since Laura had met her. Laura was more aware of her, too, of the affection always present under the quiet whir of her thoughts. “Yes, Carm?”

Carmilla leant against the bulkhead, crossing her arms. There was wariness in her, but not much. Laura was grateful for the trust Carmilla still had in her, no matter how undeserved. “What are you doing?”

Laura looked up to see Carmilla watching at her, so careful. Laura could feel the gentleness, and it wasn’t just from the Force. A flash of humour — if the Senate knew what their fearful Naboo senator was like away from the senate pod-

Maybe the senate would learn. Maybe they wouldn’t. It all depended on Lilita. And on them, for their ability to fight her. Neither of them were ready to let Lilita’s wrongs stand.

Somehow, when they talked of it, Carmilla managed to be even more vicious than Laura was.

“Practicing,” Laura told her. There was still distance between them, and she couldn’t decide if she despised it or wanted it. She could still feel the ash on her hands, on the hilt of her lightsaber. Laura needed that distance. She didn’t want Carmilla to get burned.

“Laura, you don’t need to use that.” Carmilla fumbled at her belt, and they both looked down at the same moment. Laura hadn’t noticed her old lightsaber hooked on Carmilla’s belt — by the looks of things, both of them had forgotten about it. Carmilla stepped closer, close enough to offer Laura’s old lightsaber. “Here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep it.”

Laura reached before she knew what she was doing, but stopped before her fingers had done anything more than brush the metal. Besides sleeping, this was the closest they had been since Carmilla cradled her on Mustafar’s surface, ash staining Laura’s hands.

Laura had thrown her words at her, back when she was simmering in her own madness. _Come home safe_. But… Carmilla was the one that preserved that home for her, after everything. It would have been easy to give up on her. Secrecy was a burden on anyone, even before the war. Carmilla had never complained a word. 

 _Come home_  had only ever meant _I love you_.

“No,” Laura said, and pushed the lightsaber back. She could feel the memory like a physical thing between them, of the day when Carmilla had done the same thing. _Cutie, you’re already my life. I don’t need to hold your lightsaber to prove it._  “I- it’s not. It’s yours.”

“Laura.” Carmilla kept the lightsaber offered between them, rocking slightly on her flat palm. There was an infuriating look in her eyes, of softness and sympathy. Laura didn’t _want_  that. She was bent, not broken, not something that needed constant watching. “I can’t keep this.”

Laura’s fist curled in her robes, the cream ones from what felt like a lifetime ago. Like her lightsaber, they hung oddly on her frame, like they had been tailored for an entirely different person. No matter how much Carmilla assured her that they looked fine, that the robes hadn’t changed… there was something about them that Laura cringed from.  She let go, fast as she’d touched the fabric.

Even after a month, the lightsaber in Carmilla’s hands looked foreign. The brief moment it had touched Laura’s fingers, she felt something _wrong_.

Laura hadn’t been facetious when she told Carmilla the lightsaber had been her life. It _had_  been her life, and Laura had left that life behind the moment she listened to Lilita and let that spark start to burn inside her. Her new lightsaber wasn’t perfect, either, but it was closer. Closer to who Laura was, now. Sharper lines, a quieter _snap-hiss_  of ignition, and she could feel the heat of the blade through the grip.

But it was red. Laura wasn’t like that, not anymore.

“Keep it,” Laura said, and curled Carmilla’s fingers around it. She knew Carmilla had always wanted her own lightsaber, however much she protested. This one had a messy history, but it was all Laura had to give. “You’ll make better use of it than I ever did.”

Carmilla smiled, and Laura’s resolve around distance crumbled. She threw her arms around Carmilla, forgetting about the cursed lightsaber in her hand. Carmilla stumbled, but her arms went tight around Laura without complaint.

It felt right.

“I love you,” Laura whispered into Carmilla’s hair. It still smelled like ash, and it was shorter in the back, where the surface of Mustafar had burned it away. _It will grow back_ , Carmilla had reassured her. Maybe Laura could come back from Mustafar too. “I’m sorry.”

Carmilla only wrapped Laura more securely in her arms. “You don’t need to be.”

 

* * *

 

“If you were smart,” Laura said, through a mouthful of breakfast, “You’d just drop me off somewhere like… Florrum. I’m sure Elsie would love to help me in exchange for my lightsaber.”

Carmilla didn’t look up from the hyperspace coil she was fiddling with. She’d been getting better at mechanical things, ever since she’d come back from her Mircalla mission. Carmilla claimed it was a coincidence, but from what Laura had been able to pry out of her she knew that Carmilla had been forced to take down a ship in flight. That sort of experience stayed with you. “Nope."

Laura didn’t know why she was arguing. She didn’t want Carmilla to be dragged into this. Carmilla had saved her. Wasn’t that enough? “I’m not worth you. You _save_  people, Carm.”

Carmilla finally looked up from her project, her eyes breathtakingly sad. “So do you."

“Not permanently.” Laura toyed with her meal, trying to convince herself to eat. She’d need her strength, but saying ship’s rations were unpalatable was being kind about it. "We fight off Vordenburg’s droids, but they always come back. You’re the one who fixes things, Carm. You spend more time in the Senate than anyone I know. You’re selfless-"

Carmilla snorted. PER-E made a concerned noise from the kitchen, probably about the fact that Carmilla wasn’t eating, but quieted. “I did all this for you, cutie. I stayed in the Senate to argue against deployment of the Jedi to protect _you,_ and it didn’t even work. Didn’t you see, Laura?” Carmilla laughed, bitterly. “Don’t think you’re the only one who deserves to burn."

It was the first time Laura realized that Carmilla might have doubted herself, and she couldn’t understand it. Carmilla was a force of nature, like Naboo had sent a storm to help Coruscant remember what it felt like to be a real, living and breathing planet. Carmilla was the only who stood up when Lilita tried to clamp down on the Republic systems.

When they got back, what would it be like? Was the war over? Lilita had sent Laura to Mustafar to wait for Carmilla and to seethe. What schemes had she cooked up in their absence? Laura only hoped that the other Jedi had enough sense to stay away. There shouldn’t — couldn’t — be a repeat of what had happened to her.

“All we have left is each other,” Carmilla said. It was as simple as all the other things she usually said. Carmilla liked the truth, when things got hard. It was something steady to build on. “And Laura, if you’re willing to give up on the galaxy, we can run. But you won’t.”

“I won’t,” Laura whispered. And again, stronger. “I won’t.”

Then she took another bite. Carmilla dropped a broken circuit into her empty ration bowl, prompting a squeak of rage from PER-E. The smallest smile started to creep across Carmilla’s face. “So we plan, then.”

“We do."

 

* * *

 

On the sixth night, Laura started to rebuild.

She slotted the parts of her lightsaber together, again and again. Each time, she let the lightsaber drop into her waiting hand. Each time, it retained that feeling of wrongness. No matter what Laura did, it refused to change any farther than a murky sort of maroon.

By the time Carmilla joined her in their cabin, Laura was ready to just fling the parts at the wall. Who needed a lightsaber? Laura would just stab the Supreme Chancellor with her own pen. She didn’t need to get all fancy.

“Doing alright there, creampuff?” Carmilla looked downright fascinated by both the sheer number of parts and Laura’s ability to manipulate so many things at once, but after a moment she refocused on Laura. Laura was almost impressed.

Laura stared at her wife through the cloud of lightsaber parts for a moment before letting them drop all over the bedspread. It was a measure of great control to make sure none of them rolled onto the floor. Carmilla settled in next to her, leaning her head against Laura’s shoulder. Laura frowned at the crystal in her lap, a stubborn red. “I’m not doing alright. I’m doing terribly! I’ve seen eleven year olds at the temple who can do this and I’m just-” Laura flicked the crystal “-failing.”

Carmilla nuzzled in closer as Laura picked up the crystal, turning the shining red gem over and over. “Anything I can do?”

Laura closed her left hand around it. _That_  was what was wrong with her lightsaber, not any of the other components. Of course it would have been the kyber crystal, the one part she couldn’t seem to change. “No. I just… I don’t want it to be red.”

Carmilla hummed softly. Laura could see her watching the parts with new, mechanic’s eyes. “Is there a reason it’s red?” 

Laura tapped the hilt casing with her metal hand. The sound rang. “I… It’s supposed to attune to me. When I made it. But it’s still…”

“The way it was when Maman gave it to you,” Carmilla finished. “Not the way you want it.”

Laura scowled. “Yes.”

Carmilla sighed, softly. Even with the awful crystal in her hand, Laura felt grounded. She was glad for the long journey they had taken, as much as she was starting to get antsy breathing the same recycled air for so long. It was giving her a chance to mend everything — herself, her relationship. Laura never would have gotten a chance like this back in the Order. “Can I see?”

Laura opened her hand, but Carmilla didn’t move to reach for it. Instead, the crystal seemed to shiver in Laura’s hand before slowly, wobbling, lift into the air. Laura stared.

Then it clicked. “I’m supposed to make it myself!” Laura protested, but Carmilla only laughed. The crystal was rising with purpose now, centering itself where it had been floating when Carmilla walked in.

“Are you never supposed to accept help of any kind, ever?” Carmilla asked, and she’d lifted her hand now, and head. There was still a line of contact between them all down Laura’s side, and the Force was buzzing with it. She could feel the edges of Carmilla’s thoughts, the teasing and warmth and surprisingly ironclad focus.

“Yes!” Laura said, then, "Well, no.  _Carm_.“ 

“Aren’t you going to try?”Laura bit her lip, but Carmilla nudged her. “Okay, okay.” She lifted her own hand, pulling her focus back to the scattered lightsaber. The parts swirled towards the shining crystal, and Laura lost track of which of them was controlling what. Together, twined in the Force, they rebuilt Laura’s lightsaber.

This time, when it dropped, Carmilla caught it. She held it out to Laura, her eyes shining bright as kyber. Laura loved her so, so much. “Try it.”

Laura ignited her lightsaber, and a blue blade sprang into being. It wasn’t a washed out blue, like her old lightsaber. It was a deep, dark blue, like a Naboo ocean. It was the furthest thing from Mustafar. 

For the first time in months, Laura laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

 

* * *

 

They had a fair amount of warning before they arrived at Coruscant, but Laura ate most of it up worrying. Was their plan going to work? Were they going to make it out of this? What if Lilita could turn her back? 

And the robes didn’t help, either. They screamed Jedi, and Laura wasn’t the only one who was worried about that. Jedi had become conspicuous during the war, and Laura was well known. It wouldn’t take more than a couple steps off the ship for someone to recognize her, and that could send their plan spinning out of control. 

And no matter what Danny said, a cloak wasn’t adequate camouflage, no matter how dramatic the hood. It just _wasn’t_. Danny was extraordinarily lucky, and she never went on undercover missions anyway.

It was when Laura found the clothes in the bottom of Carmilla’s closet that she finally, finally felt settled. They were easy to put on, close enough to the right size that the differences didn’t matter. They felt strange after a life in robes, but after a couple stretches they started to give.

Carmilla’s eyes lingered on her when she stepped out, the lines of her body easy to see in the form-fitting leather Carmilla had once worn to become the bounty hunter Mircalla. Laura still thought Carmilla had worn it better, but it was obvious Carmilla disagreed. “Well hello, cutie.”

Laura smiled, small but true. Carmilla grinned back, the same wild sort of energy thrumming through her that had attracted Laura to her in the first place. For a second, Laura felt young again, untamed and ready to tackle the galaxy. “Are you ready?”

The ship rumbled and lurched, LA-F setting it down not quite as gently as they could have. Neither of them lost their footing, grinning at each other the whole time. Carmilla offered a hand as the door hissed open, the grey Coruscanti sunlight spilling over the hold. In the new light, Carmilla looked solid, real. Happy. Laura could only hope she looked the same.

Laura took her wife’s hand, and held on tight. “I’m ready to end this war."

**Author's Note:**

> Back when I was writing the first story for this, I didn't think I'd ever write more of it. Clearly, that was a mistake on my part. There might be more later! You never know.
> 
> You can come scream about this (or any of my other fanfics) on Tumblr at writerproblem193 where I will answer any questions about this and also write you a minific if you want. Or you can follow me at my fanfic blog thataloneone where all I post is notifications about new tics. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the story! You're free to translate or podfic this, just tell me so that I can be all excited about it!


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